LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. — Although the Dodgers didn’t end up with Giancarlo Stanton, they might have indirectly helped prevent Stanton from winding up in their division.

The San Francisco Giants had worked out a deal with the Miami Marlins for the slugger, but he exercised his no-trade clause and refused to go to the Giants.

In part, it was the Southern California kid in Stanton.

After the New York Yankees officially announced that they had acquired Stanton on Monday at the winter meetings, Stanton’s agent said the Dodgers-Giants rivalry played a part in vetoing the Giants.

“I will say that Giancarlo and I both grew up as Dodgers fans as kids,” agent Joel Wolfe said. “And I see this with the other L.A. kids that we represent; it’s a little bit harder to get your head around being a Giant.

“And I can say I also represent (Giants shortstop) Brandon Crawford, who grew up as a season ticket holder Giant fan. He would have a hard time going to the Dodgers. That still exists in baseball. It’s not all X’s and O’s and dollars. Thee guys are still just kids, and huge baseball fans.”

Stanton, standing in front of dozens of reporters in his new Yankees hat, added that the Giants’ position at the bottom of the standings and rivalry with the Dodgers affected his decision.

“I wouldn’t base the decision on (the rivarly), but I wouldn’t want to go to the team that (the Dodgers) dislike the most,” he said. “I wasn’t sure if they were going to beat that team either. But at the same time, if they were in the right position I wanted, I would have done it.”

There was no secret that the Dodgers were Stanton’s most preferred destination from the start, even before a trade seemed realistic, Wolfe said.

The main reason the Dodgers couldn’t work out a deal is that they are already over the luxury tax threshold for 2018, when Stanton is set to earn a base salary of $25 million.

To get under the $197 million threshold and take on the remainder of Stanton’s contract, the Dodgers would have to offload several large, expiring contracts on the Marlins. Adrian Gonzalez, Brandon McCarthy and Scott Kazmir would have made the most sense for the Dodgers. That trio is set to make more than $61 million combined next year. The Marlins were either unable or unwilling to take on a financial commitment that large.

Wolfe said Stanton was fully informed on the intricacies of the payroll rules, which could have allowed him to go to the Dodgers if he’d been willing to wait a year.

“It was a consideration but he has this attitude that life is fleeting,” Wolfe said. “We don’t know where we’re going to be in a year.”

Wolfe pointed out that Stanton had a relatively down year in 2016, hitting .240 with 27 homers, before hitting 59 homers and winning the MVP in 2017.

“Let’s rewind to last year,” he said. “If this was last offseason there wouldn’t have been a line around the block to trade for him. He didn’t have a great season. He had been injured. No one was talking about him. They were selling high on him and he was selling high on himself. This is the window.”

BOLSTERING THE ’PEN

With Brandon Morrow on the verge of finalizing a deal with the Chicago Cubs, Dodgers general manager Andrew Friedman said the internal candidates at the top of the list to replace him are lefty Tony Cingrani and righty Yimi Garcia.

The Dodgers will now have a full year out of Cingrani, who posted a 2.79 ERA with 28 strikeouts in 19-1/3 innings after he was acquired at the deadline from the Cincinnati Reds. Garcia missed the 2017 season recovering from Tommy John surgery, but he made an impression in instructional league.

“He got us really excited,” Friedman said of Garcia. “He really attacked the rehab process, got a lot more physical. The ball was really coming out of his hand well.”

Friedman said the Dodgers would also “continue to canvas the market and look for upside” in the quest for relief help.